10 Lead Generation Ideas to Use in 2024

Regardless of how experienced a marketer you are, we all sometimes need additional inspiration or a new perspective to achieve our goals—especially when it comes to complex processes such as lead generation.

In today’s digital landscape, being original while staying true to tested and tried sales and marketing principles has become necessary to remain competitive.

That’s why in this article, we’ll share the 10 best lead generation ideas you can adopt to generate leads and successfully convert them.

TL;DR

The onset of the digital era transformed the way businesses handle lead generation by introducing new technologies, tools, and requirements.
To stay ahead of the curve, companies need to implement innovative strategies that ensure they’ll generate qualified leads despite all the challenges of today’s market.
Some of the best lead generation ideas and strategies in 2024 include:
Harnessing AI
Optimizing your website
Using email marketing
Running omnichannel campaigns
Using customer testimonials
Leveraging influencer marketing and strategic partnerships
Hosting virtual and hybrid events
Creating instructional resources
Using social media platforms

Top 10 lead generation ideas for 2024

Although the essential concept of lead generation has remained the same - the process of attracting, identifying, nurturing, and converting leads into customers - the way it’s done today has changed significantly due to:

Technological advancements, e.g., increased digitization, the rise of AI, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior, as today’s customers are much more demanding given the variety of choices and information they have at their fingertips.
The importance of providing personalized experiences across channels to delight leads and build strong relationships.
The market being more complex and competitive than ever before, partly due to everything going digital.

To stay ahead of the curve, businesses must design more innovative lead generation strategies that can successfully tackle all these modern challenges and yield positive results over time.

This is why our list of the best lead generation ideas includes all the marketing tactics capable of keeping up with 2024 trends and helping your business thrive.

Let’s start breaking them down one by one.

Idea 1: Implementing AI-powered tools

If there’s one trend that has marked the past few years, it’s AI.

So, naturally, AI-powered tools are the first thing to implement in your lead generation strategies to ensure you’ll be able to meet all the requirements of the modern sales and marketing landscape.

There’s a variety of tools you can use to run AI-powered lead generation, including:

Chatbots - These can be trained to perform various tasks, from engaging leads who’ve landed on your website to asking questions to qualify them, booking meetings, routing them to adequate reps, etc.

Outreach automation tools - AI has made automation smarter and more precise, enabling you to create complex multitouch cadences that include personalized messaging tailored to each lead.
Lead enrichment platforms - Solutions like Warmly can help reveal and aggregate all the relevant lead data, including their buying intent, enabling you to prioritize those most likely to convert right now.
Lead scoring tools - These platforms can automatically score and qualify leads generated through various channels based on pre-defined criteria faster and more accurately than human reps.

Overall, although similar solutions were leveraged long before the rise of AI, new technologies have made these tools more precise, efficient, and smarter.

As a result, marketers can streamline their operations more easily while ensuring they’ll get optimal results.

Idea 2: Website optimization

Your website is the cornerstone of every lead generation strategy, and with more businesses and customers migrating online than ever, investing in your website has never been as important.

To generate, capture, and convert quality leads, you should ensure that your website checks the following boxes:

It’s SEO optimized - Your website’s structure should follow basic SEO guidelines (structure, headings, meta tags, relevant keywords, etc.) as well as meet certain technical standards (loading speed, mobile friendliness, etc.) to ensure high SERP ranking and more organic traffic.
It’s tailored to your ICP - Your website needs to be optimized for attracting, delighting, and converting your ICP. Make sure you’ve included keywords relevant to your product and audience and a clear, concise, and compelling value proposition that leaves no room for misunderstanding.
It has clear and engaging CTAs - CTAs are the most efficient way of guiding leads further down the funnel by urging them to take a certain action. Use CTAs everywhere they fit while ensuring they stand out, are prominent, and use strong and clear messaging.

Use lead magnets and lead-capturing forms - The whole point of having an optimized website is to actually capture lead contact info so you can reach out and nurture them further down the funnel. Leverage lead capture forms and lead magnets whenever possible while ensuring they’re relevant to the specific landing page on which you placed them.

Pro tip: Use website visitor identification tools like Warmly to capture the leads who landed on your website.

With it, you won’t have to rely on lead-capturing forms and lead magnets to get leads’ contact data, as the platform will automatically identify the companies and individuals visiting your website.

In addition to providing basic contact info, Warmly also reveals other B2B data (technographics, detailed firmographics, demographics, etc.) and intent data, allowing you to pinpoint which of your leads are most likely to buy now.

Idea 3: Using content marketing

Content marketing is another staple point in lead generation and it’s still going strong in 2024.

Creating compelling, educational, and engaging content of various types is crucial for:

Attracting potential leads.
Positioning your brand as an industry leader.
Building trust.
Nurturing relationships.

When it comes to the types of content you should use, the actual content plan will greatly depend on your product, industry, and target audience.

However, the most widespread content types include:

Blogs

How-to videos and tutorials
ebooks, whitepapers, and case studies
Templates and checklists

In addition to these more traditional content forms, audio and interactive content have been steadily rising over the last few years.

Podcasts, quizzes, interactive demos, personalized assessments, etc., have all shown to perform well with leads, providing them with an immersive, engaging, and original experience.

So, to stand out from the crowd, you can always leverage these more unique content types, with a special focus on content that lets your leads take a more active part instead of being passive receivers.

Idea 4: Leveraging email marketing

No lead generation idea and strategy would be complete without email marketing.

Namely, despite the rise of new marketing channels, email remains unmatched in its ability to deliver targeted content, nurture leads over time, and drive conversions.

However, with so many businesses using email for lead generation, you need to ensure that your emails are optimized for your target audience to increase your chances of generating more conversions.

Here’s what you can do:

Build a quality email list - A “spray and pray” approach has definitely become a thing of the past, as sending generic emails to broad audiences will only result in massive budget losses. You should create a highly targeted list consisting only of quality leads, such as those who downloaded your lead magnet, subscribed to your newsletter, attended your webinar, or engaged with your brand on social media.
Segment your audience for personalized campaigns - Some leads share lots of common traits, which you can leverage to create audience segments. You can use different criteria, such as type of interaction with your brand, funnel stage, buyer intent level, etc. Once that’s done, you can craft personalized email copy that will resonate with each specific segment and individual lead.
Create compelling email copy - Use engaging and enticing subject lines and opening sentences to hook your leads from the start and get them to open your emails. The rest of the copy should also be intriguing, concise, and to the point, clearly conveying the value they’ll get from your solution.
Include valuable resources - Everyone loves getting freebies, especially useful ones. You can send insightful articles or simple checklists to compel leads to give your brand a chance.
Use strong CTAs - Every email should include a clear and compelling CTA that guides the reader toward the next step, whether it’s downloading a resource, signing up for a webinar, or making a purchase.

Of course, when running email campaigns on scale, you can always leverage various outreach automation tools that enable you to create email lists and send personalized emails on autopilot.

For instance, Warmly’s Orchestrator automatically adds leads who match certain specified criteria (e.g., company size, industry, ROI, role, seniority, etc.) to email sequences, sending highly personalized emails based on the relevant data Warmly revealed.

Idea 5: Running omnichannel marketing campaigns

Multitouch campaigns are the future of lead generation, as they enable you to cover as many relevant channels as possible at the same time, ensuring you’ll reach and convert more quality leads than by sticking to a single channel.

Here’s an example of a multichannel marketing campaign:

Use your website to attract quality leads and a website visitor identification tool to capture them.
Add those leads to automated LinkedIn sequences, sending them connection requests that can be accompanied by personalized messages.
Send them contextual emails based on how they interacted with your website, their specific interests, intent levels, pain points, etc.
Book a call in one of the follow-up emails and have your sales reps do the rest.

This way, you push leads further down the funnel by using a multi-touch approach that introduces diversity and establishes your presence in more than one channel.

Idea 6: Using success stories

The key step in building trust is demonstrating your brand is credible and capable of delivering what it promised.

While using techniques like content marketing and industry events can certainly help with that, your leads prefer using additional, unbiased sources of truth - your customers.

That’s all the appeal of platforms like G2 and Capterra, as they enable prospective customers to see how actual users of a specific product feel about its UX, UI, features, value for money, customer support, and other important factors.

Therefore, including strong social proof, such as success stories, case studies, real user testimonials and reviews, etc., on your website, relevant landing pages, or social media posts can be hugely beneficial for your lead generation efforts.

Of course, you must first ensure that your customers will give you good ratings and favourable reviews by providing them with a first-class experience.

That way, you’ll get free brand advocates to spread the word about your product among their peers without asking for anything in return.

Idea 7: Leveraging influencer marketing and partnerships

The evolving digital landscape has introduced a growing role of influencer marketing and strategic alliances in lead generation.

Namely, by collaborating with influencers and complementary brands, you can tap into new audiences, build credibility, and drive more targeted traffic to your lead capture channels.

Let’s take a closer look at these two strategies. They’re similar but also have significant differences.

Influencer marketing

When it comes to influencer marketing, to do it right, you first need to choose the right influencers.

Pick those who already have a strong following among your target audience and are recognized as experts in your industry, and then leverage their credibility and popularity for your own purposes.

Once you’ve made your pick, you need to create compelling campaigns in collaboration with the influencer, which can include:

Your product unboxing or review.
Giveaways, contests, and challenges featuring your product.

This allows you to subtly promote your brand with no obvious active participation of your own.

Strategic partnerships

Strategic partnerships with complementary brands can help you achieve the same goal - expand your reach and tap into a wider audience through joining forces with other businesses.

Again, you need to focus on finding complementary businesses, meaning they’re not direct competitors or completely unrelated to your brand. Instead, search for companies whose products, combined with yours, could provide you both with additional value.

For instance, if you have a data management solution, you could partner up with cloud providers to:

Provide existing clients with more functionality that might create room for cross and upselling.
Attract new leads looking for cloud data management.

Some of the ways to make the most out of your partnerships include:

Co-hosted events - You can host virtual, hybrid, and physical events that generate value for both of your audiences, such as a product demonstration, educational workshop, or a Q&A session with experts.
Cross promotions - Share each other’s content, run joint social media campaigns, or feature each other in newsletters to introduce your brand to a new audience that could benefit from your product.
Bundled offers - Create bundled offers that combine your products or services with those of a partner brand. Promote these bundles through email campaigns, social media platforms, and your website, using lead capture forms to gather information from interested customers.

Idea 8: Hosting virtual and hybrid events

Before the internet, you could only host physical events that severely limited your reach.

Today, you can get your brand in front of global audiences by hosting virtual and hybrid events that educate and engage while promoting your product.

Moreover, many hosting platforms - such as Hopin, Zoom Events, Microsoft Teams, etc. - offer numerous interactive features, such as live polls, Q&A sessions, and breakout rooms.

This functionality lets businesses engage with attendees in real-time, creating more personalized experiences that resonate with potential leads the same way as they could in live events.

When it comes to hybrid events, they take the experience one step further by offering the best of both worlds - you can leverage both face-to-face engagement in networking with leads who can physically attend while reaching remote audiences at the same time.

The best part of these events is that you can use them as evergreen content by enabling leads to access session recordings on demand. That way, you can continue capturing relevant lead information and engaging leads long after hosting the event.

To maximize their lead generation potential, you should take several steps:

Targeting and setting objectives - Decide who your target audience is and what goals you’re aiming to achieve with the event before organizing it so you can ensure everything will be well aligned across levels.
Pre-event promotions - Promote your event through email marketing, social media, and paid ads, targeting your ideal audience segments. Use landing pages with lead capture forms to register attendees and collect essential information such as job roles, company size, and specific areas of interest.
Personalized event experience - Use the data gathered during registration to personalize the event. For instance, segment attendees based on their interests and offer customized session recommendations.
Leverage interactive features - During the event, use interactive features to keep attendees engaged. For example, live polls can provide instant feedback, while breakout rooms allow for more intimate discussions.
Post-event follow-up - After the event, follow up with attendees based on their engagement. Use the data collected during the event to tailor your follow-up communications. For instance, send relevant content or product recommendations based on the sessions they attended or the questions they asked during the event.

Idea 9: Creating instructive resources

Leveraging instructional resources and implementing them on your website, relevant landing pages, etc., is a strong lead generation strategy for several reasons:

It helps potential leads understand the exact value your product offers.
It enables existing customers to make the most of your product by breaking down more complex or hidden features.
It improves onboarding experiences, helping new users adopt your product faster and more successfully and boosting retention rates.

Common types of instructive resources you can deploy include:

Detailed help or documentation centers - Making all the necessary resources for getting a deeper understanding of your product available is always a plus, as it can significantly improve the general user experience. Make sure that your help center is easy to find and access on your website.

Interactive demos - These provide leads with immersive experiences of your product, enabling them to learn through practice. In turn, you’ll successfully convert more leads and improve product usage across levels.
How-to guides and ebooks - You can use valuable and educational content such as this as lead magnets, as potential leads will be more than willing to provide contact information in exchange for important resources.

Idea 10: Using social media

These days, everyone’s on social media, making it an excellent place to find, engage with, and nurture potential leads.

Some of the key social media platforms that are often used for lead generation include:

Facebook and Instagram - These Meta platforms are ideal for both B2C and B2B lead generation. Businesses can use Facebook Lead Ads, which allow users to submit their contact information without leaving the platform. Instagram’s visually-driven content, on the other hand, can attract and engage audiences, with features like Stories, Reels, and Shopping enabling seamless lead capture.
LinkedIn - LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B lead generation. It allows businesses to target professionals based on their industry, job title, and company size. More advanced LinkedIn packages like Sales Navigator let you take prospecting and lead gen one step further by applying more sophisticated filtering and features.
X - X, formerly known as Twitter, is effective for real-time engagement and content sharing. Engaging in relevant industry conversations and using trending hashtags can help boost visibility and lead generation.

To ensure you’ll successfully generate qualified leads via social media, you need to focus on several aspects, such as:

Sharing engaging content, such as posts containing interesting visuals, statistics, relevant industry information and trends, link to an educational blog, etc., to establish and maintain a strong presence.
Continuous social media engagement by commenting on industry relevant posts, joining groups, participating in discussions, etc.
Social media ads, which can help you target and reach your ideal audience across platforms.
Use interactive content like polls and quizzes to increase engagement further and provide a gamified brand experience.

Generate more leads in 2024

While all the strategies discussed in this article offer a diverse toolkit for generating high-quality leads, experimentation is the true key to success. Each audience is unique, and what works for one business may not work for another.

That’s why it’s essential to test different approaches, measure their effectiveness, and be willing to adjust when necessary.

However, regardless of the lead generation idea - or ideas - you choose to implement, there’s one thing you shouldn’t neglect: your website.

In the digital era, your website remains at the forefront of every lead-generation process, being one of the first touchpoints leads have with your brand.

Warmly can help you maximize your website’s lead generation potential by revealing quality leads and detecting those most likely to convert right now, allowing your reps to engage them while they’re still hot.